Comcast likens its intentional network slow-downs to cars being delayed as they get on the highway, but "what we really have is a horse race," Jay Monahan, vice president and general counsel at Vuze, said during a conference call sponsored by Free Press. "Comcast not only owns a horse in the race," but they're taking the liberty of slowing down the other horses in the race to win.

Free Press and Vuze last year filed separate complaints with the FCC after an October Associated Press article accused Comcast of blocking access to peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent; an experiment that was later replicated and confirmed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Comcast admitted to delaying certain file-sharing applications when its network was experiencing high traffic, but denied ever cutting service.

File-sharing services accuse Comcast of slowing down their services because their offerings are in direct competition to Comcast's on-demand and cable services.

In January, the FCC agreed to open a public comment period on the Free Press petition that will examine whether "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates FCC rules for reasonable network management. The agency will also examine the Vuze complaint, which asked for clarification on what constitutes "reasonable network management."

BitTorrent has the foundation for "countless" new technologies, Eric Klinker, chief technology officer for BitTorrent said during Thursday's call. "Companies have leveraged the BitTorrent open-source protocol to innovate in ways that were never really envisioned by the founder."

"Media files today are large and efficiently delivering them over the Internet is a significant technology challenge that is adequately met by the BitTorrent protocol," Klinker said. Comcast's network management could potentially have a "significant bearing on our economy and the Internet at large."

One company to emerge from the BitTorrent technology is Vuze, which has been "playing cat and mouse with network operators to avoid any significant interference with our business," said Monahan. "This is a situation that can't continue."

He called on Comcast to issue "clarity on the rules of the game so we can build a business going forward."

BitTorrent is responsible for 50 percent of all IP traffic on the Internet today, Klinker said. When asked why ISPs like Comcast should not be allowed to regulate services like BitTorrent if they are eating up half of Web traffic, Marvin Ammori, general counsel for Free Press, said he takes issue with Comcast targeting an application rather than its bandwidth problem as a whole.

"The choice of what to use your bandwidth for should be made by the user and the consumer, not the cable industry," Ammori said.

Vuze's Monahan acknowledged that "reasonable network management is clearly permissible" but said that Comcast's policies were far from reasonable.

Comcast needs to work on "optimizing the efficiency of their networks and building enough infrastructure," Monahan said. "There are other sectors, the phone sector in particular, where we seem not to hear the same complaints about excessive traffic."

Comcast dismissed that comparison, and said that cable is managed differently than phone networks.

"Cable is shared infrastructure in the last mile," whereas phone networks have "choke points deeper in the network," according to a spokeswoman.

On Wednesday, Comcast submitted comments to the FCC in response to the Free Press and Vuze complaints. A spokeswoman pointed to that filing in response to the Free Press call.

"Virtually every broadband service provide in the United States and abroad manages its network in some manner," the cable provider wrote in the filing.

Conference call participants voiced support for a net neutrality bill introduced Tuesday by Rep. Edward Markey, but Monahan called for industry cooperation in addition to regulation. FCC rules "we believe are required, but not the only answer," he said. "It has to be coupled with industry cooperation."

The events of the past few days left Monahan "more convinced than ever that rules are necessary," he said.

The fact that Comcast only delays service during peak hours is of no comfort. "They're only slowing down content when you want it most," Monahan said.

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Any slowdown could have detrimental effects. The average tech-savvy, 18-to-24 year old wants "their content now and they want it fast," he said.

Comcast insisted that traffic slowdowns only affect uploads. It does not affect downloads or simultaneous uploads and downloads, the spokeswoman said. Most people are not even at their computer while uploading files, so they are less likely to notice a slowdown, she said.

Chloe Albanesius has been with PCMag.com since April 2007, most recently as Executive Editor for News and Features. Prior to that, she worked for a year covering financial IT on Wall Street for Incisive Media. From 2002 to 2005, Chloe covered technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University...
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